"Christopher Pike - The Last Vampire 01 - The Last Vampire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

He smiles. "You don't think so?"

I smile. "You would die before that happened."

He laughs. "You would take a contract out on my life?"

"Something to that effect."

He stops laughing, now deadly serious, now that we are talking, about death. Yet I keep my smile since
death amuses me. He points a finger at me.

"You can be sure that if anything happened to me the police would be at your door the same day," he
says.

"You have arranged to send my records to someone else," I say. "Just in case something should happen
to you?"

"Something to that effect." He is trying to be witty. He is also lying. I slide back farther into my chair. He
thinks I am relaxing, but I position myself so that my legs are straight out. If I am to strike, I have
decided, it will be with my right foot.

"Mr. Riley," I say. "We should not argue. You want something from me, and I want something from you.
I am prepared to pay you a million dollars, to be deposited in whatever account you wish, in whatever
part of the world you desire, if you will tell me who made you aware of me."

He looks me straight in the eye, tries to, and surely he feels the heat building up inside me because he
flinches before he speaks. His voice comes out uneven and confused. He does not understand why I am
suddenly so intimidating.

"No one is interested in you except me," he says.

I sigh. "You are armed, Mr. Riley."

"I am?"

I harden my voice. "You have a gun under your coat. You have a gun on your desk under those papers.
You are taping this conversation. Now, one might think these are all standard blackmail precautions,but I
don't think so. I am a young woman. I don't look dangerous. But someone has told you that I am more
dangerous than I look and that I am to be treated with extreme caution. And you know that that someone
is right." I pause. "Who is that someone, Mr. Riley?"

He shakes his head. He is looking at me in a new light, and he doesn't like what he sees. My eyes
continue to bore into him. A splinter of fear has entered his mind.

"H-how do you know all these things?" he asks.

"You admit my facts are accurate?" I mimic him.

He shakes his head again.
 "Now I allow my voice to change,to deepen, to resonate with the fullness of my incredibly long life. The